Cellophane — FKA twigs
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Cellophane — FKA twigs
Amazing Moments in Timbre | Timbre and Orchestration Writings
by Nicholas Burton
FKA twigs is a British dancer, producer, and singer-songwriter. A backup dancer in South London by the age of 17, FKA twigs has since fostered her solo singer-songwriter career starting in 2012 with the release of EP1. FKA twigs’s most delicate and personal work to date, “Cellophane,” appears on her second full length album, MAGDALENE, which was released in 2019. In this song, imaginative use of timbre is produced through electronic effects in combination with the vocals.
A tragic ode to perseverance and rebirth, “Cellophane” tackles the intense emotions of a public celebrity romance scrutinized by online critics. In the song, repetitive lyrical content such as “didn’t I do it for you?” express twigs’s disbelief in her own crumbling relationship while other lyrics (e.g., “they want to see us, want to see us apart”) relate to the taxing nature of online comments. Twigs's expression of resentment towards the public’s involvement results in her decision to pursue emotional detachment. This is emphasized with the pinnacle vocal line at the end of the verse, “all wrapped in cellophane, the feelings that we had.” In addition to lyrics, this instant showcases a uniquely evocative production technique—an amazing moment in timbre.
In this moment (1:40), a combination of background digital effects bring an unforeseen dimension and nuance to the song's theme and lyrical message. Aside from the formal function as transitional material into the beat drop and second verse, the timbre of these effects can be interpreted as a direct mimetic reference to the sound that cellophane of plastic wrap makes as it crinkles around an object. This is discernable in the crackling and creaking sounds underneath twig’s soft and transparent vocals. For further exploration, the sound clip above has been visualized in the spectrogram below:
Spectrogram, from 1:40–1:51 in Cellophane
Of note here is the large amount of energy in the range of 1.5–3.5 kHz as well as the vertical lines in the upper frequencies which correspond to the start and end of this effect. It’s as if the entire track, like the feelings she bears in the song, are suddenly wrapped in plastic.
This timbre is fascinating because of the depth of imagery conjured by such a short moment. In this example, the sound design, in combination with lyrical and thematic content, is suggestive enough to complete the visual and metaphorical depiction without coming across as cloying and overproduced. In this amazing moment in timbre, subtle production choices create new depths of embodied meaning and metaphor without directly sampling real-world sounds. Instead, sound effects which would typically function in the background suddenly become central to musical interpretation and thematic meaning thanks to unique timbral properties.
(This video contains an extended intro; the amazing moment in timbre is at 2:33, not at 1:40 like in the original track)
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